On Wed, 2004-01-21 at 17:11, Phil Mattison wrote:
> Wow, that article about Sterling Ball is impressive.
>
> http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html?tag=3Dlh
>
> I've been toying with the idea of using Linux for more than a web server,
> but have been hesitant because of the apparent learning curve relative to
> the benefits. I've already sworn never to adopt WinXP, so maybe I was
> already half way there, but this article convinced me it is worth the effort
> to become proficient with Linux. Part of the reason I started using Linux
> was that I sort of missed the old days with DOS (believe it or not) because
> then you had complete control over the machine, such as it was. You have
> that with Linux but its a lot more complex. Along those lines, I've bought
> quite a few books already in an attempt to 'grok' Linux, but they all seem
> either too rudimentary (click here to install) or too bogged down in the
> details of some specific distro. Can anyone suggest a good source for the
> overall structure and conventions used in Linux, other than "Linux
> Internals?" I read "Linux Programming," which helped a lot, but I still
> don't quite feel like I've got the big picture. My problem is I have lots of
> other things to do besides tinker with Linux, so, "Learn Linux in 100,000
> Easy Steps" won't do it for me. I worked my way through "make xconfig"
> recently and it seems a lot of stuff is baked into the kernel that I
> wouldn't have expected to be. Is there a clean boundary between kernel and
> device drivers, for example? I guess what I'm looking for is where are the
> boundaries and what do the interfaces look like, without getting an
> explanation of how to write a demand-paged virtual memory manager.
> --
Just like your email about VMS/DOS and Windows, you seem to get stuck in
long winded paragraphs that lose me. It's always so much easier to get
answers when the questions are obvious.
So instead of trying to answer what I don't even see as a question, but
rather a general tonal request, I will tell you how I learned to love
the monster ;-)
All of the latest distro's do a pretty good job of installation,
hardware detection and configuration. None of them are perfect. Judging
from your description, you would probably not want to boot directly into
XWindows (GUI) (run level 5), but rather into multi-user text mode (run
level 3).
You can start xwindows as either root (not suggested) or as another user
(definitely preferred) for internet/word processing stuff and quickly
switch to command line virtual terminals and have the best of both
worlds. It is the using of Linux full time that will ultimately figure
out why things are done the way that they are done. Difference between
DOS and CLI on Linux is night and day.
Craig
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